


Into The Light

by maraudeuse



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 09:24:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3129407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudeuse/pseuds/maraudeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They don’t have trouble <b>finding</b> each other. By chance, or by instinct, they both end up in Paris at the same time this time. Everything else, however, takes a while. And apologies. And a paper hat.</i>
</p><p>Recognizing someone from a previous life proves more difficult than expected when you’re both not the same person as before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into The Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadowy-andata](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=shadowy-andata), [kjack89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/gifts).



* * *

  **I. The Leader In Red**

* * *

 

Dying was a familar experience to R. In fact, he had experienced death so many times that life seemed like a weird invention after all. He had quickly come to three conclusions: Either he was a mentalist, or he was mental, or the universe did not particularly like the fact that he was alive and sent him those messages to remind him to go off and die as soon as possible.

As those blackouts had happened ever since he could remember, regaining conciousness on the uncomfortable floor of the Bibliothèque Michelet's cafeteria after having been executed by a firing squad did not seem too peculiar to him. For some reason, however, the student showing him around seemed to mind the fact that he had just collapsed midway through his explanations about the opening times and the different types of coffee you could order.

"Holy cricket", he exclaimed when R sat up – which he did immediately after opening his eyes – "do you need a doctor or something?"

"No, I'm fine. Just the usual mental breakdown I get when entering a library", R grumbled.

It was true that he would normally not have bothered to set a foot in a place with such a distinct aura of late-night cramming, granola bars from a vending machine, and tears, but this tour was part of his programme as a first semester of the Université Paris-Sorbonne which he could have hardly flunked. On the other hand: if he had been in his right mind he also wouldn't have enroled in a university in a city that he was pretty sure was connected to those blackouts, especially considering the fact he usually didn't allow himself to think about what they meant too often. Even now, he brushed the thought aside and tried to concentrate on the present again instead of some crazy fictional past.

"Can we just get a coffee or something?", he asked his tour guide in what he hoped was a light tone.

"Yes, of course", he replied, still giving him a worried look. Jean, he remembered now. "Just take a seat and wait here, I'll be right back."

R had the impression he wanted to ask him whether he was alright once again, but he changed his mind and turned away after R had safely managed to sit down. When it came to radiating an aura of _don't ask_ , he sure was a master.

Speaking of auras, or rather, speaking of radiation: _somebody_ who was sitting two tables away from him immediately drew R's attention as soon as his sight had completely cleared. It didn't feel like he was merely looking at this somebody, but more like he was focussing his complete and undivided attention on him. The weird thing was that The Name popped up in R's head as soon as he turned his head to look at him.

(The Name: one of the first words R remembered, that had accompanied him for most of his life, and of which he had merely guessed that it was a name. Now, seeing the stranger, it suddenly became crystal clear that it had to be a name, that it inevitably meant _Person Who Sits In A Library Cafeteria With An Untouched Croissant In Their Left Hand Which They Obviously Have Forgotten To Eat Because They're Too Absorbed In A Way Too Heavy-Looking Medicine Textbook_.)

R tried to force himself to look away. He definitely needed some coffee, or maybe a smack on the back of his head, or maybe both. _Radiation._ Somehow this _someone_ managed not to look ridiculous with a croissant hovering halfway to his mouth, but rather such a defiant mixture of strength and determination, that it seemed ridiculous to R that he hadn't been placed in the exact center of the room with spotlights focussed on his determined look, coily brown hair, narrow shoulders in a bright red jacket and ridiculous reading glasses.

The deep sigh R let out came just in time to accompany Jean's coffee and an unexpected question: "You don't think it's contagious, do you?"

 

R found himself hanging out in the library for a full three days, which included flunking several of his first lectures, not that he had cared much. He tried coming up with a plan, but since he was deeply convinced that making a plan resulted in certain failure, he just drank an exorbitant amount of coffee on the fourth day and went for it. If he had asked himself why he was doing this at all, he wouldn't have been able to provide a sufficient answer, but there he was, not trying to think about it too much, sitting down across Dr. Too Enlightened To Eat and sliding a cup of coffee across the table.

It came to a halt next to the textbook.

Like in slow-motion, R could see the doctor's gaze wander from the passage on the bottom left to the cup with the university logo printed on it to R's retreating hands to his green sweater, up his neck and, finally, to his face.

(Okay, this had probably all happened in the split of a microsecond _._ )

R swallowed hard at the sight of those brown eyes. Their conversation went as follows:

"What's this?"

"Coffee, obviously."

"I don't do coffee."

"Then whatever you'd like it to be. You could always pretend that it's hot chocolate."

At this point, R could see the irritation in the other student's eyes turn to annoyance. When he introduced himself as "R", he knew it was too late, even before he got the answer: "Can't you see I'm studying? Don't you have anything useful to do?"

"I like to think of myself as more wild than useful", he replied, downing the coffee himself and sliding back his chair. He still didn't know what had made him want a stranger's attention so badly. It had seemed like a habit, somehow, but he surely wasn't trying again.

 

Luckily, R was used to messing things up.

 

* * *

  **II. The Revolutionary Who Remembers His Past Lives**

* * *

 

Adrien was secretly chewing on the end of his scarf while he desperately tried to concentrate on the discussion, which was particularly dull this evening. Usually, he would have intervened at least after twenty minutes of the pros and cons of additionally distributing post-its next to pens at their _Médecins Sans Frontières_ info booth at the university next week, but right now, he just let the controversy drag on. He wasn't in the mood for arguing (which was a state of mind he normally only entered when he had the stomach flu).

In fact, he wasn't in the mood for anything.

He hadn't been for almost exactly two days, or to be precise: ever since he had went home from the library that day and had realised that he had probably treated this first-semester in the cafeteria unfairly, however annoying he might have been.

Adrien didn't like to feel displeased with himself.

He also didn't like the fact that he hadn't been able to keep up with his work schedule due to spending too much time on scolding himself.

And yet, even now he couldn't help but feel irritated with someone who wasn't even there. _I'm wild_ , yeah, judging from the symptoms – narrow pupils, hyperactivity, fast pulse (as could be seen on his neck) – the guy had been rather hyped on caffeine. Plus, considering his annoying grin, the paint under his nails and the washed-out green hoodie, he was, in all probability, exactly the sloppy art-student he looked like, the kind that went to university because they didn't know what else to do --

 _Stop._ Adrien gave a frustrated sigh, now even more discontent with himself. He really had to organize his thoughts. Pretending to take some notes (were they seriously still discussing the post-its?), he scribbled a list on the flipside on a flyer template.

_1) know him?_

This was the most important, yet most difficult question to answer. Adrien was sure he had never seen the Annoying Artist at university before, plus, judging by his accent, he had moved to France not a very long time ago. Which pretty much ruled out _this life_.

Adrien, however, remembered three.

At some point in his life, he had come to accept that all evidence pointed towards reincarnation and he had tried to be as reasonable about it as possible. To his frustration, all his research had given him the most information about his life as a seventeen-year old girl who had been shot at the Berlin Wall, but not much about the one which had been giving him nightmares ever since he could remember. The only thing he had been able to do was pinpoint it to somewhere in the 19th century and concluding that he had died alongside a person who had been important to him.

Jean, who was sitting next to him, elbowed him rather ungently, making Adrien flinch.

"Do you agree with the arrangement?", repeated Émelie, who had been leading the discussion. It seemed like he had missed the voting.

"Still the post-its?", Adrien asked with a definite lack of enthusiasm, causing her to make a face since she interpreted his question as criticism. Although he knew very well everyone in this room was expecting him to give a motivational speech about how the post-it issue was of High Importance for the _Amis de MFC_ and how every little move would fit in the great picture of the organization's goals, he just couldn't bring himself to care. Instead he just muttered: "Yeah, that's fine", frowning at his notes.

He tried to ignore the fact that literally everyone was eyeing him and that Jean, possibly having gone along with the stomach flu theory, was carefully inching away from him. Adrien didn't blame them, considering the fact that normally, he never missed an opportunity to state his opinion and, even more, to disprove the previously stated arguments.

Although Émelie was able to stand up to him in a discussion without any difficulty – which was partly due to the fact that she had a keen eye for detail and could sense the weak point in the design of every speech, and partly because they had known each other since their first year at Lycée where they had often been kicked out of class together for "causing unrest" – Adrien was always elected chairman and Émelie his deputy. She once had explained it to him like this: "It's because I don't mind talking about the bits and bobs."

Adrien, on the other hand, hated evenings like these where all they did was discuss all the minor issues that had piled up during the previous weeks, like whether to print their newest flyers in A4 or A5 or when the meeting for setting up the work group for the other meeting should take place. He wanted to _change_ something. This was why being the leader of their group was frustrating him a lot more often than he would admit.

This evening, however, he could not even be annoyed by their useless discussion. Most likely, he was annoyed by himself for lacking the discipline to take part of it, but he just couldn't take his mind off the thought that had been nagging him for days.

_1) know him?_

Adrien was pretty sure now that he could trace that feeling back to the one second where he had introduced himself as _'Aire_. It hadn't sounded as much as it had _felt_ familiar. He literally had to keep himself from mouthing the word over and over again, like a word he had invented when he had been a child and then forgotten.

_Aire. R._

As soon as the meeting was over, he excused himself to the bathroom to dump a load of cold water on his face.

When he got back to fetch his jacket, everyone had left without restoring the table arrangement in the classroom they were using, like always. To be fair: Everyone except Jean, who was still sitting on his chair, glaring at the ceiling.

"Depressing, isn't it?", he said to nobody in particular when Adrien entered. "Now that even our idealist gets annoyed during the meetings, how will we ever achieve anything?"

"Definitely not with that attitude", Adrien chuntered, helping him up. "Come on, I'll give you a ride home."

He probably should get used to feeling discontent with himself.

 

Another two days and a lot of cold water later, Adrien still hadn't sorted out his mind and decided yet again to treat the matter systematically. After half an hour of scrolling through the numerous profiles of the "Art Students of Paris-Sorbonne" Facebook group and subsequent research, he had not only found out that he had been correct about R's subject, but his full (and unpronouncable) name, Rían, as well as his domicile (conveniently his own dormitory, only three floors above him). Plus, despite being a freshman, R seemed in fact to be two years older than Adrien, which somehow made him feel nervous. Still, since he had over-analyzed their conversation and his own uncourtly behaviour, standing before the appartment door in question, he was confident that he would be able to give an honest apology.

It took R at least three minutes after he had rang the doorbell to show up. During that time, Adrien had entirely forgotten how his speech should have started, so when R opened the door in his plaid flannel pyjamas and with his coppery hair as ruffled as it could get, all he managed was a plain "Hi."

R's eyebrows rose intimidatingly high. "The doctor himself, what an honour", he said with a clearly mocking undertone, "why don't you come in and take a seat?"

Since he didn't move an inch, accepting this invitation would have meant squeezing past him through the doorway with full body contact, so Adrien concluded that he probably wasn't serious. Plus, he didn't approve of full body contact with strangers.

"I came to apologize", he said, stammering at first, then remembering what he had wanted to say. "I hope I haven't come at an inconvenient time."

"How could you", R answered, "I keep my evenings free for a mostly comatose state."

"Well, you're awake now." Adrien began to feel annoyed again, which surely wasn't a good starting point for an apology. "I should have realised you were a freshman and been nicer to you. I am not normally this rude."

"So you think you shouldn't have been nicer if I was in the second semester?"

Adrien stared at him, unable to tell if R was being serious or mocking him again. "Don't start nitpicking, you know what I mean", he said rather harshly, ignoring the fact the he was known as the greatest nitpicker ever to have joined the Amis.

"This is not the way people usually apologize", R reminded him.

Adrien closed his eyes and took a deep breath in the vague hope it would calm him down.

"I am deeply sorry for my misjudgement of your intentions and my impolite behaviour", he said in the friendliest tone he could muster. He opened his eyes again, rather content with him, just to see R grinning at him: "I think you have the capability of being much more terrible than that, so I'd say it's alright...Unless I don't believe you mean it."

Adrien began to get the impression that R savoured this moment.

"Well, we could...do something to reconcile. Spend some time together. We could go to the library tomorrow, if you like."

R snorted. "Is this your idea of drinking to friendship?"

"So is it alright with you?"

"Excuse me, I'm still not over the fact that you asked me out to the library", he was trembling with surpressed laughter, "this is so _romantic_ of you."

Adrien tried his best to stay dignified and just stared at R until he stopped laughing, which surprisingly didn't take long.

"Yeah, okay. I usually _don't do_ books, but if you like to, we can try."

"Okay, then –", too relieved to find anything even mildly intelligent to say, he made a vague gesture with his right hand. R shoved him out of the doorway and began closing the door.

"You may have a lot of virtues, but sign language is clearly not among them", he told him. "See you at 11 in Michelet's entrance hall, don't be late."

 

Only the shut door was left to be told that 11 was way too late to start.

 

* * *

  **III. In Which R Is Already Someone**

* * *

 

Adrien had the impression that after two hours in the library, all he had managed to do was stick three neon green post-its in his textbook and read the same passage for at least five times without being able to retain a single word of what it said.

Part of his lack of concentration was due to the fact that not every student visiting the library on a Saturday morning did so to get some work done. First, Émelie had spotted him and R at their desk near the window and promptly taken the opportunity to quietly discuss some last details about their information booth. She hadn't been gone for five minutes when Jean popped out of the medicine area carrying a bunch of books and under the pretense of studying, while he obviously only wanted have someone validate his irrational fear of being allergic to onions. After Adrien had tried, without avail, to talk him out of it for ten minutes with all the medical knowledge he could muster, he had reminded him of the paper that was due on Monday. This had catapulted Jean into a state of panic and he had left immediately, leaving Adrien uneasy, as always when he didn't handle a Jean situation well.

R had been mostly quiet during those whispered conversations, however when Fawza came over for the sole purpose to ask Adrien what to do with the sick chemist and his only response was his notorious _Be Fucking Serious We Have Important Shit To Do_ glance, he had to mentally block out a five minute exchange of science puns that even included the infamous "That was sodium funny".

„Bring the Capital R to our next meeting, won't you?“, Fawza suggested before waving goodbye. "We could use someone with a sense of humour."

Adrien made a mental note to find out what this remark by his second deputy implied about her opinion of his leadership qualities.

Plus, to think about why he had flinched at _Capital R._

"So you're in some sort of fraternity or what?", R asked.

"No, it's, erm, it's an _Amis de MSF_ group. Doctors Without Borders. We try to raise awareness. And, yeah."

He cleared his throat. Where were his convincing speech delivery abilities when he needed them most? He had spent so much time talking about the organisation, about the humanitarian problems the world was facing today and how they were so often omitted by the news because we were just so jaded and they didn't affect our daily lives, and how he studied medicine because he believed that neutral, non-discriminatory humanitarian aid was a duty. Right now, however, he had the impression that if R started the argument about how humanitarian aid was instrumentalized by politics, he might not be able to stand up to him.

Which was an impression that annoyed him beyond measure.

When he didn't continue, R gave him a weird look and went back to studying. Adrien's focus didn't get any better, though, as he found himself looking at the little flag-waving figures R had doodled in his History of Art textbook instead of reading his own. He was absolutely sure now that he knew R from one of those previous lives. There could be no other explanation for why he was so self-conscious around him. He was used to talking to people, goddamnit, and not even delivering a speech had ever gave him sweaty palms or a heart racing from nervosity.

Maybe it was possible that he had recognized R by instinct and his body was trying to tell him, somehow.

He had not been aware of staring until R looked up again and said: "Could you possibly stop checking whether I'm studying or not for just a minute, please?"

Adrien blushed, which seriously couldn't be happening. "Don't sit across from me if you mind me looking straight ahead while thinking."

R raised his eyebrows like _yeah, thinking._

Okay, maybe Adrien had simply no clue what was going on.

Another half an hour later, R closed his textbook with a snap and started getting up. Adrien frowned.

"Giving up already?"

"Studying just isn't my thing", R said, in a mockingly apologetic tone. "I've tried my best to fight this horrid weakness of mine, but there's nothing to be done about it. Besides, I already know enough to squeak through my test."

"And you don't have any greater ambitions than just passing?", Adrien asked, seriously puzzled.

"Well, as you have already noticed, I am an art student, thus I am ambitionless by definition."

R's sarcasm combined with his provocative grin made Adrien sound somewhat snappy when he said "Then this whole thing was obviously a bad idea".

There was a second of silence.

"Sorry for dishonouring the library", R said then, getting up, his smile slightly fluttering. "Only the best of us can be overeager overachievers."

 

Long after R had left, Adrien was still staring at his empty seat, absent-mindedly cleaning his glasses with his shirt sleeves. It was a mystery to him why things had to be this complicated, or why R had to be this horribly sloppy, or why he even bothered. One feeling, however, was particulary hard to shake off, and that was the feeling of making an old and familiar mistake once again.

 

* * *

  **IV. Speaking On The Cuff**

* * *

 

R was in the middle of carving a highly geometric pattern into his kitchen table when the doorbell rang. Half expecting it to be one of his neighbours who felt annoyed either by the carving noise or by his accompanying performance of The Clash's _English Civil War_ , he took his time to finish the last verse and answer the door.

He probably would have cut the singing and put away the carving knife if he had known that it'd be Adrien who stood in the doorway. Or maybe he had done so anyway, just to annoy him - he couldn't really say.

Quite a bit of staring happened. On Adrien's part, the knife had to endure the vast bulk of his _Why Is This Just Happening This Is Beneath My Dignity_ glance, but R also got his portion of it. It was possible he had red paint stuck in his hair, or chipped wood, or both (a lot of stuff seemed to end up in his hair, maybe this was some sort of redhead magic and it had special abilities like absorbing paper-clips and spitting them out again when he showered). R hoped that he managed to keep his expression neutral, despite being once again absorbed by all those little details that put together the picture of Adrien in his doorway. The stubborn coil of dark bistre hair that made its lonely stand on the left side of his forehead. That one button on Adrien's red jacket which had been unprofessionally sewn into place with a bright pink thread that clashed with the red. The extraordinary eyelashes that became a lighter shade of brown at their tips.

Okay, he had definitely been staring for a few seconds too long.

"Well, well, well, if this isn't Apollo himself! This has become quite the habitude."

The words left his mouth without R being able to tell where exactly they had come from, altough he vaguely remembered Apollo being associated with healing from the classical studies he had half-heartedly taken two years ago. This was probably what he had been thinking about. To deprive Adrien of the opportunity to comment on his remark, R quickly turned away and left it to him to close the door and follow him into the kitchen. Entering the room again, R frowned and looked at the mess he had produced in less than a single day. He had had already forgotten that he had gotten up this morning to paint the fridge with a green mandala and had switched to a (now half-finished) illustration of a faceless man in red on yesterday's newspaper that was lying on the ground. Okay, so he propably _had_ paint at least somewhere on his body.

When he turned around, he was surprised to see Adrien not frowning, but instead taking in the scene with an unreadable expression.

"Okay, so why exactly did you decide to grace me with your presence?", R asked as he was getting nervous. Adrien tore himself away from the abused kitchen table, looked at R again and seemed to refocus.

"I came here to apologize again for judging you and interfering with your personal life choices", he began in a tone that didn't quite match a conversation among two students in the messiest kitchen you would be able to find in Paris. "Who am I to even form an opinion about it? I want to emphasize, however, that everything I said was solely motivated by my concern about you and that..."

Now it was R's turn to stare, this time in pure amazement. He couldn't help but let his mouth form a small grin. There were _actually_ people in this universe that came to other people's homes to deliver a speech of apology. That they had _rehearsed_. For which they had put _notes_ on their hands in case they got flustered.

R felt obliged to interrupt him.

Plus, he wasn't even completely sure what Adrien was talking about.

"So this is about me leaving the library early?", he asked.

"Yes."

"And about you talking to your activist friends all the time and acting as though you regretted asking me out on this library date in the first place?"

"Well, I didn't think about it this way, but...yes, probably."

"So when you suggested we study together you thought you could inspire me to be better", R said lightly. "I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"I didn't mean to _inspire_ you!"

It was way too easy to make Adrien snap for R to be able to resist the urge.

"Oh yes, you did. You thought I was some wretched freshman with neither goals nor friends..."

"I didn't think you didn't have friends", Adrien responded huffily. "In fact, you seem to get along with everybody."

"So do you, leader in red. What do you want? We obviously can't interact in any way that is healthy, so why do you keep popping up? Have I made such an impression on you?"

This had definitely come across a lot harsher than R had intended to, but it was the most honest thing he could have said. Ever since Adrien had shown up at his appartment the first time, R had been asking himself why this had happened, since the only vibe he had caught from him was disapproval. R hadn't once questioned the fact that Adrien disapproved of him.

It just seemed to be the natural order of things.

All it took was a quick look to see that Adrien was ambitious where R was apathetic, that Adrien was involved with an idealistic campus group where R spent entire days alone in his apartment, flunking his lectures because they seemed useless to him, destroying his furniture and not caring about anything too much, not even eating or taking a shower, in short: that Adrien was a leader, someone who obviously believed in something, while R dragged behind.

R, however, didn't need a fierce believer to draw him out of his Pit Of Nothingness. Somehow he had slowly come to the conclusion that no-one should have the right to make him feel bad about the way he was. This process had taken years and he felt like it had been the hardest thing he had ever done. Maybe even the only thing he had ever actively decided, for he liked to drift. Once, he had had a long discussion with his best friend back at school, Brendan, on whether believing that you don't need to believe in anything meant believing in something.

It had ended with R stating that he didn't care.

He wouldn't say that he didn't believe in _anything_. He just didn't believe that his life had a higher purpose and that in the end, it would matter at all that he had lived in the first place, or that he would achieve something that would change the world.

R was fine with that, no matter how many red leaders would show up on his doorstep.

He had been thinking about some of this when he had asked said leader about whether he had made an impression of him, causing the bitterness in his tone. R had not expected Adrien to make an incoherent sound for an answer (something R had never heard before and which couldn't really be described) and to look at his hands and then up again. Adrien hesitated.

"Do I really have to do this?"

Surprisingly, he also had a vexing _I Am A Fluffy Kitten Please Pet Me_ glance in store, although R suspected he should never, ever tell him about this.

"Yes, because I haven't got the slightest idea where this is going. Please enlighten me."

There was that sound again. Then Adrien tensed his jaw and defiantly raised his chin.

"Okay: I think you're a decent person. You annoy me, but I like you."

Saying that R was surprised would be an understatement. He simply wasn't able to react for a few seconds, let alone think of something to say, or just think at all.

"Gods in heaven, was that some sort of compliment?", he finally blurted out. An uncontrollable grin now spread over his face. Fighting for Adrien's attention had seemed like a bad habit to him, like something he had done for ages, but this had nothing to do with this mess of weird dreams and obscure feelings. This was _new_. This was warmth spreading throughout his chest and feeling like his stomach was tickled with a paint-brush and having these words on repeat in his head, _I like you I like you I like you_. This was being dumbfounded by this tingling sensation and saying something he couldn't even remember a second later and getting a strikingly beautiful death glare in return.

R hadn't expected you could throw him off his feet so easily, but he didn't mind at all.

"Now how about you apologize for calling me an overeager overachiever?", Adrien suggested, eyebrows raised, after the death glare had faded

"Did I actually said that?", R asked, amazed.

"Yes, you did", Adrien grumbled.

R felt his grin grow broader as ever. "Okay: You're not. You're simply the most ridiculous man I've ever met."

"This is backfiring!", Adrien objected once again, but now there existed a sentence R could always use to make him shut up:

"You put _notes_ on your hand before you came here."

 

* * *

  **V. A Ridiculous Man**

* * *

 

It wasn't as if Adrien didn't like the rain, but he _did_ mind the fact that he had forgotten his umbrella even though he had precautionarily left it on the kitchen table earlier. However, as he had spent the afternoon at R's and R didn't have a single functioning clock in his appartment, they had left in a hurry, Adrien hadn't remembered to bring the umbrella and was now in an irritatingly damp state.

R, on the other side, had just put on his hood and didn't seem to mind getting soaked on their way to the Métro station at all.

They were going to spend the evening with Adrien's Amis group, informally, of course. Adrien had thought about asking R to come to an official meeting exactly once, and after thinking about it for seven minutes (in which he had organised his thoughts in a mind-map, which was, embarrassingly, something he did quite often when it came to interpersonal relationships), he had come to the conclusion that R would either refuse more or less politely or that he would come for Adrien's sake only. Which, of course, Adrien didn't want. Plus, R already helped him by listening to his lines of argument and tearing them apart, and by mimicking Adrien's gestures when mockingly reciting his speeches by heart – he could memorize them almost immediately – in his now barely noticeable Irish accent. (Aside from the fact that R refused to put the stress in _problème_ on its last syllable, he had adotped quite a Parisian dialect in less than seven weeks.)

Okay, maybe Adrien was a little bit impressed.

It did, however, bother him how utterly nihilistic and how mercurial R could be. How he would just decide that something wasn't worth his attention and never think of it again. They had known each other for five weeks now, during which they hadn't talked for five days straight when R had announced midway through one of Adrien's lectures about humanitarian aid that he "simply didn't care" and they had both been too stubborn to apologize for what had happened afterwards.

R made Adrien feel more balanced, that was true. Somehow, they had made it a habit of spending their breaks together (mostly at Adrien's appartment because at R's you couldn't be sure not to trip over some paint pot when he decided that his hallway needed to be black or that he should build a giant cockade out of book pages in his kitchen) and Adrien had to admit that despite of their arguing, it relaxed him. Somehow, seeing that R didn't seem to mind anything that he found out about Adrien filled him with confidence. He would tease him about it, but never over the top, and Adrien liked the feeling that someone knew about his mind-maps, his habit of sticking way too many post-its in a single textbook and the fact that he secretly was a bit of a picky eater.

Then, however, they would argue for hours, either about a bagatelle or the big picture or about how R would lie on his couch for an entire day and ignore everything and everyone, making acid-tongued remarks about all that Adrien said and did until he would explode and accuse R of things he didn't even mean. And Adrien would ask himself whether R had been right that day when he had expressed his doubts about them being able to have a healthy relationship.

Adrien had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't even notice how R had steered him, hand on his back, into the Métro until their station, Passy, was anounced. They followed the bulk through the tiled hallway, past a man playing _"La Valse d'Amélie"_ on his cello (Adrien hadn't seen the movie, but he had heard Émelie playing it on the piano for about 500 times) and up the stairs. Which was when Adrien remembered the rain and stopped, making a face.

"What's wrong?", R asked. "We're not going back. You agreed to go two days ago even though you were fully aware that most people would be drunk, there would be loud music and you would look like you brought your boyfriend with you."

Adrien didn't know what to make of the last part, so he ignored it, a tactic he admittedly used quite often, especially with R. To prove that he was fully capable of enduring a night out with his friends, he stepped out into the rain, automatically hunching his shoulders. Maybe he didn't like the rain, after all.

He had walked about ten metres when he realised R wasn't beside him anymore. He had added three points to the pro and con columns of waiting for him when R caught up with him again, holding an issue of _Metronews_ in his hands. He only realised that it was in fact a paper hat made from the free newspaper when R placed it on his head.

Adrien stared at R, having the strong feeling that he could't conjure up the death glare at that moment.

He removed the paper hat.

R took it out of his hands and placed it on his head again. "This will save your precious curls from getting ruined", he stated.

"I don't even _care_ how I look right now", Adrien protested. "But this thing is ridiculous."

"You've justcontradicted yourself. Come on, doctor, you can pull this off. You can wear anything, even tight red jackets."

 

Adrien didn't know why, but when they arrived at Fréderic's and Marian's collocation at Square Alboni five minutes later, he was still wearing the paper hat. Maybe it had something to do with R giving him this look when he had presented it to him.

It still looked ridiculous, of course.

Fawza had a fit of hysterical laughter as soon as he walked in and he had the strong impression that several photos had been taken before he had the opportunity to fold it and put it in his pocket. Adrien didn't like being the center of attention when it wasn't professional, plus the laughter made him nervous, so he made use of death glare again. This time it worked on everyone except Fawza, who was still giggling and in response tried to pat him on the shoulder, saying: "Hats up, Adrien."

The Death Glare deepened to a _Don't You Dare Make_ _Physical_ _Contact With Me_ Glare, which would have done the trick, if it hadn't been for R who was obviously delighted to meet Fawza again.

"That was beret funny", he complimented her with that grin Adrien still found slightly annoying.

Fawza beamed when she turned to R: "I appreciate your cap-ital effort, but _that_ wasn't even remotely funny."

"I think I can do the top hat pun", he objected.

"Hats more like it", she grinned.

A fist bump happened. Adrien made a mental note to either make sure the two of them would never be in talking distance again or to stay far away from them.

"Can we please stop with these horrible puns and just sit down somewhere?", he said. Fawza steered him towards the living room, where most of their friends had gathered.

"Hatters gonna hat", she said.

R snorted.

 

Jean was very touchy-feely when drunk.

Adrien didn't know how he could have manoevered himself into this situation, but two hours later, he found himself sitting on the couch, Jean curled up halfway in his lap, occasionally checking for Adrien's pulse, while Émelie sat cross-legged on the coffee table across from him, ranting about how Heathcliff should be considered a force of nature rather than an avenger. Due to this unfortunate choice of words she then switched topics mid-sentence to ramble on about Marvel comics. Her knowledge was way too detailed for someone who usually emphasized how mediocre they found them.

Adrien hated it when people gave disjointed speeches. It was something that annoyed him about R, as well: He would start off with the Rennaissance and end up with the production of maccaroni.

Adrien didn't drink because he didn't like the feeling of losing control. Additionally, he got drunk almost immediately and every time he had tried, everyone had made fun of him for ages. The story of "How Adrien Got Drunk At New Year's Eve Three Years Ago At Trocadéro" was still recounted at every possible occasion. _Even though_ they had all agreed to never bring it up again.

On occasions like this, Adrien would normally watch everyone get drunk and act ridiculous together with Fawza, but this evening, she was talking to R over in the kitchen.

Adrien was annoyed by this.

Adrien felt stupid for being annoyed by this.

"I told you so!", Jean said, all of a sudden alarmed. For the hundredth time, Adrien thought that it probably wasn't such a good idea for Jean to get drunk, but every time he had an opportunity to talk to him about it, he didn't know how to start with the topic.

"What did you tell me?", he asked calmly.

"Your pulse is unstable", Jean muttered with closed eyes. "You have three days to live."

Émelie was talking about why Angel, not Alec, was true antagonist in _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ , which almost made her seem like her normal self, if she hadn't periodically interjected her speech with exclamations about how she wanted to punch mysogynistic, double-tongued asshole in the face every time she watched the BBC Miniseries.

"Émelie", Adrien interrupted her, "could you help me get him to bed?"

A clearly defined problem obviously had a sobering effect on Émelie, and she immediately stopped with her lecture to get one of Jean's arms around her neck. Together they hurled him into Fréderic's room and on his bed.

"I'll look after him", Émelie said, "You should check on your friend. He might feel a bit overwhelmed by all of us."

"I don't think so", Adrien muttered, but he nevertheless closed the door behind him and made his way to the kitchen. He found Fawza, alone, sitting on the counter and eating cereal with milk (which she tried to hide behind her back when Adrien came in).

"Seriously?", he said, frowing.

She quickly stuck her tongue out at him, then continued with her snack. "Capital A, you didn't just try to make a pun, did you?"

"Where's R?", he asked as a reply.

"He went home about thirty minutes ago. Was feeling sick, I think, but he wanted to go alone."

Adrien's frown deepened. "Was he drunk, or something?"

Fawza squinched up her face. "I don't know, I thought I heard somebody throw up in the bathroom, though. But let's not jump to conclusions. Why do you care, anyway? Did you plan on doing something with him later?"

Adrien ignored the subtext in the last remark. "He has this exam tomorrow", he said, already a bit angry. "He said it was important and that he would take it seriously."

"Okay, but it's his exam and not yours", Fawza reminded him. The look in her eyes was _way_ too understanding. "Go easy on him, Adrien. This is not your business."

Adrien just shook his head and went to get his jacket. "I'll just check on him, okay?"

 

After having worried about what he'd find at R's appartment the entire way there, the fact that R opened the door with red and green paint in his hair, seemingly perfectly fine, humming _English Civil War_ again, threw Adrien off course.

"You're okay!", he said almost accusingly.

R just raised an eyebrow. _"...nobody understands it can happen again, hurra, tala"_ , he sung without much enthusiasm.

"So you're really okay?", Adrien repeated.

"Yeah", R said. "I was feeling a bit queasy earlier, but maybe it was just the stale air. That, and I had started to feel a little bit weird all alone with your friends, and then I had this really awesome idea of how to install those water bottles over my bed, and so I texted you", at this point he glared pointedly at Adrien's pocket, "that I'd go home earlier."

"Oh", Adrien muttered. "I didn't see that. I just heard you didn't feel and had thrown up or something so I thought..."

R bit his lip before turning away. "So you thought I was drunk and irresponsible as always and you'd show up here to make sure you could drag me to that goddamn exam tomorrow. Yeah, I get your point, Adrien. It's just sad that I wasn't the one to throw up but the one to pull back the hair in the process. I don't even drink, did you know that?"

There was so much accusation in his voice that Adrien just went for the easiest thing to respond to: "You don't?"

"Well, now that I've come to think about it, I guess it would be an awesome idea to be drunk all the time, considering the fact that I'm such a jolly, totally stable person when I'm sober", R snapped. "But that's not the point, I'd rather know why you thought it would be your job to rush in here like a knight in shining armour and..."

"...because I was worried about you, obviously", Adrien said cooly.

"Well then you better stop trying to take care of me, because I can make my own choices", R said in a flat tone before turning away. In the last second, Adrien slid his foot into the gap and pushed the door back open, following R into the hallway.

Then he stood there, R still with his back turned towards him, waiting.

Normally, if Adrien knew what he wanted to say, the words would just fly to him. He would instinctively know which ones to pick and how to place them. With R, his talent seemed useless, because there was always this heap of vague words and feelings that he couldn't even interpret, let alone express toward someone else. All he knew for sure in this moment was that he liked R exactly as he was, in all of his messy, unpredictable, devil-may-care ways, because even if he could, he wouldn't change a thing about him.

Maybe he just had to let go of whatever was holding on to him that made him so angry seeing how R didn't live up to what Adrien thought was his full potential.

Maybe – if he really liked him the way he was – he just had to full-heartedly let R _be_ the way he was.

He reached out for R's arm, trying to make him turn around. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to take care of you", he said silently. "I _do_ care about you, though."

R slightly turned his head to look over his shoulder, searching for Adrien's eyes.

They met.

"You're my opposite. You balance out my flaws. You point them out. This is why you can annoy me beyond measure, but I love being annoyed by you."

R made a sudden movement, turning around, grasping Adrien's other arm. All at once, they were just a few centimeters apart from each other.

Adrien heard himself, like from afar, breathing heavily. And then, somehow, everything seemed to get grey and wobbly and the walls tilted. A circulatory collapse, maybe? He held on to R in order not to fall, burying his face in the soft transition from his neck to his right shoulder.

His knees buckled.

"Enjolras!", he heard R cry out, and, as he slid to the ground: "You're the one that needs to be taken care of, you ridiculous man."

 

* * *

  **VI. Permission**

* * *

 

Enjolras was coiled up, his head resting in R's lap, dizzily looking up to him. R had expected it to take at least two hours to convince him that he needed rest, but surprisingly he did not seem to mind at all.

 _Adrien_ was coiled up. R seriously needed to stop this.

Unfortunately, _Adrien_ didn't make the impression that he was about to let that topic go.

"Enjolras?", he asked in a faint, but oviously determined, voice. R could tell from the way he puckered his lips.

R sighed.

"It's just a name that has been stuck in my brain like forever and spontaneously came to my mind." _And I regularly dream about getting shot next to someone of this name. Nothing to worry about, I'm fine._

 _Adrien_ tried to recline on his ellbows, but failed, which seemed to bother him for a second, but then R could tell he was about to go all in.

He braced himself.

"So you wouldn't agree if I suggested that we've met previously? If I also suggested that previously meant about two hundred years ago?"

"And by meeting", R said, numbly, "you mean something like getting shot?"

"At a barricade, yes."

A barricade...the word somehow seemed to fit. A barricade. Why on earth would he be on a barricade? And why was this the first question that came to his mind, instead of _Is it possible you hit your well-formed head when you decided to faint_?

He could answer both of them: Because he would believe in Enjolras, and because he knew immediately that it was true. In fact, he had known for a long time, but decided that it wasn't something he wanted to spend his life thinking about.

"I think", Adrien...oh whatever, R just _liked_ to call him Enjolras, went on, "maybe, if your last thought in one life is something extremely...intense and...moving, you might remember it in the next one. Or something like that. I've spent so much time thinking about it, but it still makes me woozy."

Suddenly sounding unsure of himself, he eyed the ceiling intensely.

R couldn't help but smile a little. "So you're saying you're some sort of revolutionary spirit that is drawn to this world to fight all of its injustices?"

Enjolras glared back at him. "We're not going back there, are we, _Taire_? You know very well that I refuse to believe that things cannot be changed. But this has nothing to do with this...stuff about...previous lives." His voice trailed off again.

"So this is how you get yourself to learn the symptoms of glandular fever?" R couldn't resist to tease him a little, maybe still a bit dizzy about the fact that he had just been called _Taire_ , which felt _right_ , even though he didn't know where it came from. "You tell yourself that it's a sacrifice you bring because the world will benefit greatly?

"It's just a different approach this time", Enjolras said huffily. "Also, if we consider the fact...or maybe better the _impression_ that I remember three lives, maybe we can rule this revolutionary spirit thing out for this one."

"Three?", R said, taken aback, but quickly recovering. "Okay, how many times --"

There was the death glare once again. R loved it.

"I think", Adrien said in a dignified tone that left him again after the first two words, "that maybe I was...looking for you."

There was a short silence, during which R could only look at Adrien's face, at Enjolras's face, feeling incredibly soft. He ran his fingers through his hair, smiling. "Looking for me in order to pass on whatever disease you've been carrying around because you're to stubborn to admit you're sick, right?"

Enjolras frowned once again. "You've just ruined the moment."

"I proved that a moment can't be ruined when I'm with you", he objected.

"When _I'm_ with _you_."

"Stop it, or I'll draw a two times two meter painting in your bedroom called _The Leader In Red About To Throw Up_."

"I'm not sick", Enjolras protested, "I probably just forgot to eat while I was studying."

"Then why don't you get up?", R teased him. Enjolras blushed slightly, biting his lower lip.

"You're not very good at sign language", R reminded him.

"You're just oblivious", he objected. "I just blushed, that's enough of an answer. Why do I always have to be the one stammering about my feelings?"

"Because you're horrendously bad at it, which is extraordinarily cute."

Their fingers met, intertwining.

"This is just as vague as I was", Enjolras protested, his voice suddenly a bit hoarse.

"Did your ability to argue in a precise manner suddenly desert you", R replied mockingly. "Should I get you your notes for the speech you surely prepared a while ago?"

Enjolras interrupted him by reaching up, placing his hand gently around R's neck, pulling his head down toward his own face. "Do you permit it?", he asked, just a breath away from R, his lips nearly brushing against his own.

Grantaire smiled and finally closed the distance between them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Les Amis de MFC is an actual organisation, although according to my research, it only exists in Canada. I felt free to move it to France, too, for this fic.
> 
> Shout-out to my wonderful beta reader, [shadowy-andata](http://shadowy-andata.tumblr.com), who improved this text a lot and made it possible for me to express what I wanted to say. We've discussed this text in so many sessions that I feel it's really our baby. Thank you so much!
> 
> Also thank you to the fantastic [kjack89](http://kjack89.tumblr.com) who introduced me to Les Mis fanfiction. I’ve read so many of her e/R fics that saying she didn’t inspire me to write this wouldn’t be accurate, and the title for "A Ridiculous Man" was inspired by her fanfiction "A Paroxysm of Jealousy". I don't know if there's still anyone on here who is unfamiliar with her work, but if you are: check her out, she's amazing.
> 
> This is the first fic I’ve ever written in English. Also the longest text I’ve ever written in English. Also the first fic I've ever written that wasn't about the Marauders. So thank you for reading this! I'd appreciate all kinds of feedback. You can also read this on my [Tumblr](http://coffee-and-cockades.tumblr.com).  
> I've only been to Paris for about a week in my whole life, so I'm really sorry if I've made any mistakes decribing the city.  
> The title of this fic, of course, was inspired by the Enjoltaire ship captain’s rendition of “I will follow you into the dark”.


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